~~~
How dare they?Did they not know of his kind? Did they not have any damn mind at all? After the embarrassment last time Mason felt so rebellious, could they just be
that moronic a second time?
Kurt's mask belays little of the anger darting through his veins, the intricate crimson lines akin to flame across the carven-like white material, dark slits outlined in bloody red hues giving him vision, design covering all above the tip of his pale nose, would never betray his narrowed eyes underneath its form. The man before him, Mason, an ex parade-ground soldier with ties he intended to use, appeared so agonizingly foolish: Bringing his drabbery-adorned former compatriots to the dim barn, hay bales and horses ambient, which only one was told to reach. Weaponry clanging on their hips, a sureness in their poise, the band of arrogance knew no bounds, and wished to break the bonds of pawns with intimidation of their own. Surely, a mass of men could successfully take him alone, right?
His left fist clenches subtly, black gloves, emblazoned with the silver emblem of a vertical semicircle crossed with a single horizontal delta, around an even darker leather sheath held by his side. One man against little over a dozen former knights and guards. It must look in such contrast; Drab and roughness all around him, the man in his long black trench coat, slit sleeves ending in red cuffs - the same color as the interior of the coat. Pants of the same dark shade, stretching all the way to his matching boots, crimson on their bottoms. Indeed, he seemed much more formal than those fools around him. Overtop his mask, Kurt's short vermillion hair, spiked and windswept backwards with two small, hornlike appendages an inch in length showing barely through the strands nearby his mask, only furthered the shade. At the end of his gloved hand, he clenches tightly to his sheathed sword as the aging officer paces back and forth, his words a blabbering of empty threats and high-horse speak to force him into their own ends. Unknown to the man giving his pathetic speech to the rowdy mob, for that was all they appeared, they weren't even pawns, and would never be anything of note.
Mason, a grin as his compatriots cheer the man's bravado along, steps up to Kurt's face, only a few inches separating the two. Kurt looks down at the fool, just as he continues; "-and we most certainly will not be bullied around by the likes of you and your bastard cohorts! Especially that freak and her mouthy little boyfriend - You tell that bitch I'll plug 'er hole with a masher if I see her 'round here again!" A few of his gang show their support in the form of incoherent forced laughter and yelling, "As for you..." He jabs a fat finger into Kurt's chest, who doesn't do so much as flinch or tilt from his stoic stance, "...you'll be doing all of
our work instead."
Kurt slowly looks down to the man's finger, still jabbed at his chest. With a calm voice, a neutral and measured tone of little accentuation to note, he gives the only question that mattered in a phrasing of sureness, for it couldn't be so much a question now as a statement. To others, it sounded too much like a low growl, though it happened to just be his voice. "So you refuse."
"You're damn right I refuse to work for you!" The edges of Kurt's lips rise subtly as Mason answers, "and you know what, I think I'll have some fun with that bi-" He gulps twice, eyes widening in shock. The skin of his neck parts and runs bloody rivers down his body, a slice opening to reveal the near-decapitation. Their leader clawing at his neck whilst stumbling backwards, the others watch in the same level of shock and horror. Kurt didn't even seem to move for his opening slice, it was just a slight
woosh and the man was already dead. He lowers his stance slowly, one foot back, then darts forward - lightning, straying from the thunder. In an instant, he slides to a halt on the other side of the already-dead Mason, blood-red Chokuto now held outward in his right hand. He flicks his sword to hold it in a reversed fashion as his quarry's head rolls off of his body, and stabs it into the ground via an eye socket as it falls. Kurt, after a pause for dramatic effect, slides the blade calmly out of the butchered eye, flicks it once back into his normal hold, and slips it back into its sheath whilst returning to the casual stance he began in. Blood flecks off when he flips his blade, splattering across one of the onlooker's faces.
"...Would you like to join him?"
The mob looks to one another, a plethora of emotions showing; anger and shock, nervousness and surprise, all plain to see among the faces of old and young. Finally, one runs forward to Kurt's waiting challenge, a roar and a mace as his weaponry. Metal clangs as blade meets shaft, a sword holding his overhead blow from moving any further. Kurt finally shows a hint of his own emotions - a simple grin and a lowered tilt of his head.
Others rush forward, seeing an opening from the interlocked weapons. Kurt angles his blade and stabs it through the opening of the mace's prongs, leverages it from the man's grasp, and flings it to his left, smashing another opponent's face in with the sickening crunch of bone. In a reverse of his previous move, Kurt slashes the first man's outstretched right arm clean off at the elbow, then kicks him back and into two of his advancing comrades as he screams in pain and clutches his bloody stump. Another challenger with a shortsword advances from his right, easily dealt with after a heavy slash to her blade, bisecting it at the hilt before she can do more than brandish it threateningly. He cuts twice horizontally across her abdomen, blade a flurry of imperceivable movement lasting only a heartbeat, then darts forward and elbows her chest, hard. The woman's legs fall backwards, while her torso flies into a wall with a thump and a line of entrails trailing behind. On the other side of him, her severed blade flips through the air and into yet another man's neck. Kurt turns and runs past him, grabbing it as he passes, and throws it for a second death in the same fashion across the growing mass of litter overtop the dusty, blood-drenched ground. He continues his run back to the first man, slashed diagonally around him to bisect the two he was incidentally holding back, and kicks him again into a large hay bale. The entire ordeal is over in less than a few seconds, not even enough time for any of them to exit the barn, if they had tried.
Kurt flicks the blood again from his sword, sheaths it again, then calmly turns to the remaining individuals of the bunch, rallying behind him. "...Hungry for more? or have you finally seen enough of what happens when you defy me?" He asks, looking between the group, subtleties of arrogance showing clearer.
A single iron crossbow bolt flies from the rear of the group, aimed straight for Kurt's face. Another clang, another flash of movement, and the act of vain violence is slapped into the ground without much effort from Kurt. Sword sheathed again in the same instant, he steps forward to finish what he started.
"...I'll take that as a no...."
---
12:59 AM
~~~"What's up sparkles? Don't like the local flavor?" Ryan asks, a grin sliding across his lips. "I know that face." He wraps his right arm around Crystal, walking alongside him, and pulls her closer. "Just because you didn't get to kill them all today doesn't mean you won't tomorrow. I do feel bad for those lovely ladies though, can't help being so attracted to my handsome features..." With his left hand he brushes his smooth jaw, brown eyes watching the stars as they walked. "Oooooohhhhh, wait just a
moment-" he snaps back to look at her again, "Is it that Mason guy? He sure had problems huh? Sure 'ol prickly porcupine'll lose his patience and cut him up this time, as if he has any patience..... Axes to grind meets axes to grind..." He pauses, taking several steps with her before speaking again, "So not jealous?"
Crystal smiles broadly at Ryan, a wink and her right eye shifts from azure to silver.
"Wellllllll it's not like I'm doing anything with them..." He jokingly whines, then sighs. "...We might as well see how spiky's doing. He won't mind if we pop in to say hello..." He continues. Crystal shakes her head in reaction, her smile never faltering as they approach the clearing the old barn resided in, clangs of metal striking metal just reaching their ears.
"....sounds like Kurt's having fun..."
---
1:00 AM
~~~The sniveling whimpers of an armless man and the dripping of blood from all around, the first sounds Voi hears upon exiting the snarling portal. Bodies everywhere, parts and pieces mostly across ground that looked as if made of blood, viscera, and loose intestines. Voi steps forward, closer to Kurt as he finishes making sure that the man would do what Mason refused to. Certainly, Kurt and Voi looked much the same - both masked with the same theme and design, both in red and black clothing, but they weren't friends or compatriots as one might guess upon a glance. Kurt doesn't look away from the begging rat, but speaks to Voi nonetheless, "Figured you would find out..." He turns to face Voi completely, as the rat stumbles away to his escape.
Voi lowers their stance and holds the hilt of their blade, as Kurt mirrors across the barn, and prepares for the only outcome there could be - more clangs of battle echoing throughout the night.
